finalflight | PSL; [THE BELL WAS RINGING]

PSL; [THE BELL WAS RINGING]

[There are good days. The ones where he helps Carl with his art, sunlight streaming in through the glass walls of the studio. Calm, quiet, seemingly detached from the outer world. Markus likes those days the best; where routine hastens along its little track, unerring and steady. Medications, injections, breakfast in the morning. A clear schedule (not always the case, but sometimes), no appointments to be ready for, to be late for. Only the scent of coffee, the quiet clack of chess pieces against a black and white board, or the melodies from a pianoforte threading through the air. They always talk about art, but sometimes Carl will talk to him about literature. About philosophies that he can’t still quite grasp, but he thinks he can see the shape of it if he focuses enough — the state of humanity, and all of its beautiful, unflattering forms. Markus listens, and he learns, tending to his duties easily enough. Happily enough, he thinks. There’s always paint to be cleaned from his fingertips when the afternoon comes to a close, and evening ushers itself in.

And then there are bad days.

Days where it’s hard to ignore something as fleeting as mortality; Carl’s health worsening, fluctuating, pains and soreness. A shadow of frailty casting a pallor over all the man is, opening the door for something they had worked to keep at bay for a long while yet — depression. He knows when he sees it creeping in, he can hear it in the tone of the older man, views it in the lines of his aged face. Markus talks to him, calmly, coaxing for him to tell him how he’s feeling, or to rest when he needs to. That his work will be there for him tomorrow, when he feels better, and that he should eat something while they wait for the doctor to come in.

Carl grumbles something at him, dry and a little sarcastic, and Markus just smiles. Says something witty in return, willing his LED to stay blue — (can he will it to stay that way? He had always wondered, but the thought slips away, like sand through a sieve) — for the other’s sake. Tells him he’ll be downstairs if he needs anything.

And he waits downstairs, thinking of what will pass the time until the doctor arrives. What needs straightening, what needs cleaning. To push away distracting thoughts via distractions itself. Yet Markus finds himself merely standing there, alone, looking at the door, while the false birds in their cages sing, echoing in the foyer.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ That's good to hear, and the introduction... surprisingly is as well. It's possibly because it is a large part of Arthur's function to be personable -- after all, no one wants a doctor, android or otherwise, with a poor bedside manner. ]

Arthur. A pleasure.

[ That much is genuine. And whether or not Markus wears his uniform around the house is no business of his. He's content to take the other at his word. ] I have already reviewed his files, so unless there is something else you feel I should know, I believe I have all the information I need.

[Markus does his best to be polite, to be personable. Partly because of his baseline programming dictating that a caretaker be that way; and secondly because he sees no reason to not be, despite there being no obligation for niceties between androids.]

Only that Carl doesn’t like to be fussed over, and even if he’s sick, I’m sure he’ll see it that way. But don’t mistake his personality or any remarks he might make out of an unwillingness to cooperate. It’s just how he is.

[Not that he means to paint Carl in a bad light; there’s an actual thread of fondness in the way that Markus says it.]

Please, follow me.

[He’ll lead him up the stairs, then, to the second floor, and eventually stops in front of Carl’s room.] I can wait outside if you need me to. [He doesn’t particularly want to, but he will.]

[ Arthur can only smile to himself -- that small bit of fondness speaks volumes about the man he is to see, and he privately thinks to himself that he has faced far, far worse than the type of person who can elicit a response like that. ]

I will bear that in mind, thank you.

[ He follows the other up the stairs easily enough, idly taking in the interior of the house as he does. Even if he did not already know it, he would certainly take the owner of this house for an artist. ]

If he would find your presence a comfort, I would sooner have you in the room.

Then I'll join you.

[A comfort for Carl, and maybe a little selfishly, for himself. Nodding, he leads Arthur into the room, already well-lit with natural light, to see him.

Markus will be only present enough to not get in the way, of course. He's done this before, knows to be a shadow that can be seen, and offering input when desired. But otherwise, Arthur is left to attend to his job, while Markus settles himself nearby.]

[ Arthur finds that he instantly likes Carl Manfred. He puts up a little token resistance, sure, but Arthur gets the feeling that he’d be like that with a human doctor as well. They trade jabs and dry remarks, and though the man in ailing, it proves to be an overall pleasant experience.

At the end of it all, Carl is as well off as one can expect him to be, given his condition. Arthur leaves him to rest while Markus shows him to the door. They exchange pleasant farewells, and though Arthur knows that happy is the physician whose skills are not needed, he can’t help but wonder if he will cross paths with either of them again. ]

[Life goes on, as it does. Days go by, Carl’s health moves in valleys and hills — but the valleys are less prevalent, which Markus is glad for. The project he’s been working on makes progress, he aids in clean-up when he can, and he faithfully performs all the errands and tasks expected of him. Time is fluid, constant, and life — or whatever one might call it, as it applies to an android — is something shaped like contentedness and reliability.

Until it isn’t. Until one night, he awakens in rain and mud. Incomplete, blinded in one eye, deaf, pelted with rain and functions struggling to reboot. In one night, everything had changed; fate had taken the whole of his existence and rendered it null and void. Stole away his purpose, watched in seconds as all he knew merely rolled over and died as if it had lost its spine, and then nothing.

Everything was wrong. He didn’t know where he was. Sound was a rush of harsh static, pounding at his senses. Mud caked on his form, heavy rain registering through garble. A self-diagnostic reveals the mess of what he is. The parts he needs, cobbled together out of the broken bodies of discarded androids all around him.

This must be what having a nightmare is like, he thinks.

Endless minutes pass, and Markus finds what he needs, except the one thing which he needs the most. His Thirium pump regulator, malfunctioning. Absolutely crucial that he finds one, and a slog past a slope and through more sheets of rain allows his sensors to pick up the trace of one in an android leaning against a pile of bent and broken limbs of other units. He makes his way to him, before sinking to his knees, and reaches out to feel at the other android’s chest, willing his fingers to find purchase so that he might pull the part out.

He’s too harried to recognize a familiar face. He’s so half-stricken with alarm that he merely assumes that the other is deactivated completely.]

Edited (9_9) 2018-08-02 20:33 (UTC)

[ Things change so quickly. Arthur spends his days watching the ebb and flow of human life, of sudden tragedy, and slow, melancholy inevitability. He has seen people bounce back from the impossible and succumb to the unexpected. He knows how a single second, a solitary breath, can alter the course of everything, turn it on its head and send everything into a frenzy.

It can’t have been more than a second, the conflict between an order to let the man on his operating table die and the knowledge that he can be saved. Arthur, in the end, chose to act on the latter. He chose what he believed to be right, and his entire world shattered around him for daring to cross that line.

It feels like months, years that he’s been trapped in this hellish wasteland, though it can’t have been more than weeks at best. It is a waking nightmare, the sort of thing that sends screams echoing off the sterile white walls of the place he used to call his home. He never understood it before, outside of the basic science that sometimes human brains just do not function as they should, but now? Now he understands in a way he wishes he did not. Kept prisoner by his own nonfunctioning limbs, propped against a mound of other parts, things that he knows would be of use to him if he could but grab them.

All he can do is close his eyes and wait for the inevitable end, and now he understands yet another function of the humans he had so often tended to in a way he had not before. He doesn’t want to die. This isn’t a slow, quiet goodbye in a bed surrounded by friends. This is a car crash. A heart attack. This is sudden and terrible and unfair—

There are hands on his chest. The sensation of being manhandled has his eyes flying open, and he would grab for the arms of his assailant if he could. ]

Stop! Please, stop! I’m not…

[ I’m not dead yet. The statement, ironically, dies on his lips, once his vision comes into focus and through rain-streaked glasses, he makes out the face of the other android above him. His memory struggles to place him for a moment, but when it does, ]

Markus?

[The voice startles him, almost as much as Arthur’s eyes opening, looking at him with something akin to desperation; so poignant in this awful place that he can notice it clearly behind clouded lenses. Markus’ hand retracts, as if nearly caught in a trap, and his fingers gently curl inwards as he truly looks down at the face of the android who had just spoken his name.

He recognizes him. Remembers him. The MA700. The android who filled in for the physician who couldn’t make it. Who saw to Carl, spoke to him, tended to him on that sunny day—

(Carl. Carl. Something sharp clenches around his chest, having nothing to do with the malfunctioning regulator. It hurts, in ways that are raw and impossible to describe.)]

Arthur? What-

[Eyes flick to the pile of discarded parts he rests against. He performs a cursory scan of the other, and readings come up garbled, but semi-informative. Limbs broken, not functional. Beyond repair.]

What happened to you?

[How did he end up here along with the rest of them? Along with him? How did normalcy turn into... this for them both?]

[ What an odd thing for the first thought to cross his mind once Markus pulls away to be thank God. Thank God Markus doesn't drive his hand into his chest in the name of his own survival. Thank God there is a mote of hope and familiarity in this desolate wasteland. ]

I could ask you the same.

[ A try at his usual dry humor, though it is brittle in the face of the grim reality of their situation. ]

Can you...

[ It almost feels like too much to ask, but surely the presence of a friendly face must be fate. ]

Can you help me?

I...

[Help him? Markus feels like he can barely help himself, the rain is so loud, there are so many bodies here that he feels like one wrong move and he’ll trip over limbs, or a cascade of mud and broken plastic will bury him under the weight of a thousand dead things with a thousand forgotten serial numbers, and he’ll just be one more thrown-away machine in a history of thrown-away machines.]

I can’t, I—

[Not yet. He can’t yet. His Thirium pump regulator needs to be replaced as soon as possible, or he’ll deactivate. He’ll die like the rest of them, hollow-eyed and grasping at the sky.

But even as these thoughts careen through his mind, already Markus knows that he can’t leave him here like this. He can’t be so cruel.]

I’ll come back. Just wait for me a little longer.

[He moves to stand again, hand pressed to his chest, rain practically sluicing off wet clothes.]

[ As much as he doesn’t wish it to, Arthur’s expression falls in the face of that hesitation. There’s nothing he can do about it, though. He can’t so much as twitch a finger to force the other to stay.

But what he can do now is look, and at last his eyes drift away from Markus’ face to the all-too-obvious hole in his chest. He doesn’t need to scan the other to know he’s got his own problems, but he does anyway, just to confirm. Already Markus has scrapped himself together this far, evident in his now mismatched eyes, but that Thirium regulator is the real problem. ]

… All right. It’s not as though I can do much else right now.

Be careful.

[ He will wait, then. Wait and hope. ]

[He stands there for a second more, just looking at Arthur. Then, wordlessly, Markus turns away, and disappears in the mud and the rain and everything awful that makes up the core of this hellish place.

He's gone for what seems like too long. The rain doesn't stop, the floodlights from above flicker when great mechanical arms of overhead machinery slide past. Markus is nowhere to be seen; perhaps he's found what he needed and left, leaving Arthur a callous, empty promise. Maybe he didn't make it, his time cut short courtesy of a vitally malfunctioning part.

Until a shadow casts over Arthur's form once more, and there he is, standing straighter than before, the alarm in him seeming to have ebbed away in the time between.]

Arthur...

[He crouches down, looking at him.] I'm back. Still with me?

[How long had he been in this place? Markus' face twists into a deep frown.]

[ The seconds tick by at an agonizing pace. Seconds become minutes – long, excruciating minutes where he begins to wonder if rescue will ever come. That little flicker of hope had been so brief, so fleeting, but he cannot even begin to resign himself to the end again.

His eyes have slipped shut again, because he cannot bear to watch the slow decay around him, waiting for a figure that he is beginning to doubt will ever come.

The sound of his name, carried on a familiar voice, pulls him back to reality, and his eyes fly open again, this time out of joyous relief than fear. ]

Welcome back.

[ Arthur is looking… ragged at best, white hospital coat torn and stained beyond recognition. However, aside from his damaged limbs, the rest of him has fared well enough. ]

You’re looking a bit better.

[Markus would scoff, but his own dry sense of humor (picked up by Carl, so much he learned from him) isn’t so prevalent. He’s dipped into concern, that stoic sort of determination, and takes in the man’s state. Far from the presentable physician who had visited him month’s prior. Then again, the same could be said for him.]

Only because of the help of the dead here.

[It’s not an over-exaggeration, or at least it doesn’t feel like it. Even his eyes are different colors now.]

Your limbs need replacing. I’m going to do it for you, all right? Then we’ll both find a way out of this place.

[ A sobering thought, and one he himself will have to embrace in order to get out of here. It's unfair, the way androids like them are cast aside like so much trash, but if the limbs of those who fell before and wasted away can help carry him to a better place, perhaps there is some solace to be taken in that. ]

Thank you, Markus. I truly owe you.

Don’t thank me yet. Not until we’re both free from this place.

[He works quickly, though carefully. Finding limbs that are compatible with Arthur’s model is harder than it looks, even with the great, terrible stack of them directly behind him. But Markus finds them — arms. The bottom halves of legs, connected with a satisfying hiss-click once the old are discarded.

Eventually, through rain slicking down his face:]

Try to move now. Slowly.

[ It feels like a lifetime since he's been able to feel his arms and legs, an eternity since there wasn't angry red lights crowding his vision, broadcasting his damaged state of being as if he were not already acutely aware.

He wants to get up, to run and move and escape, but he also knows that it's wise to take it slow. He's given that advice to more patients than he cares to count -- and now he ought to take it to heart, himself.

His hands first -- flexing his fingers, his wrists, his elbows. Then he twitches his feet, bends his knees, and it's like he's been given life all over again. How long did he think he would be left to rot here, to decay like the countless others before him?

Seemingly satisfied, he holds his hand out to Markus. ]

I don't know about you, but I am ready to put this place far behind me.

So am I.

[But what after that? After that, where do they go? What’s left waiting for them for discarded androids that no one wants? That some would deem broken or dangerous or-

(He remembers the half-body of one reaching out to him through a pile of corpses. A hand on his arm, a memory sweeping through his already frazzled processing. Find Jericho.

If he can’t return to that place he once called home, if that’s not an option, then maybe-)]

Here. Careful, slowly. See if you can walk.

[He takes Arthur’s hand, and helps lift him to his feet as Markus stands simultaneously.]

[ Arthur hasn't thought that far ahead. He had been so certain that this desolate and terrifying place was to be his reality for... well, possibly forever, that he had not even considered what to do were he to get out.

He's a bit unsteady on his feet for a handful of moments, and he rests a hand on Markus' shoulder to keep himself from toppling over. Once he's sure he's not liable to fall into the mud, he takes a few shaky steps away from his companion. Then a few more, with more certainty. It seems he's acclimating to his borrowed limbs well enough.

There is no mistaking the sheer gratitude on his face when he turns to face Markus. (ARTHUR ⇧) ]

I think I've the hang of it now.

[This is an instance where Markus will offer him a smile, faint and tired as it is, wound up in relief at seeing Arthur being able to walk properly.]

I’m glad to hear it. You’re lucky, you know.

[As strange as it is to apply the word to this situation as a whole, Markus believes that Arthur was fortunate that it was only his limbs that were in need of replacement. Still, he turns, looking up at a great slope before them, just behind where Arthur had sat.]

We can help each other try to get out of here. I didn’t see a path... the only way is up, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be easy.

I know. It seems you were in a particularly bad way.

[ To say nothing of the gash still in Markus' side or the hole in his chest. Arthur instead points at one of his own eyes -- the one that mirrors Markus' differently-colored one.

He turns to look up, up, up the mountain of bodies and mud and debris. Probably a good thing he didn't realize how close to freedom he'd actually been all this time. Still, that looks like it will be no easy feat. ]

That it does not. So long as we take our time and be careful about it, I believe we can manage.

[In a bad way would be an understatement. How he had managed to come back online on his own, with no outside help, after the state he was in? After what had been done to him? It was nothing short of a strange miracle, but one that Markus himself will not bother to question. The rest of the damage done to him will have to be seen to later, though; being functional enough to leave was all that mattered right now.]

Right. I agree.

[Slow and careful. Easy enough, with enough determination applied.

Markus stands near the steep incline, so towering that it might as well be a wall. He says nothing for a few long moments, running a preconstruct in his mind, noting where to stand, where to grab, will this support his weight? Yes. The weight of two? No. Rewind, try again. Different platform, different place to find purchase with his feet, a little tricky, but they should be able to do it if they coordinate together.]

All right. [Ending the process, he looks at Arthur and waves at him to follow.] Watch me and follow my lead. If you need help, just say so, and I’ll give you a hand up.

[With that, it’s ~~parkour~~ climbing time. Slowly, one hand after the other, each foot to follow.]

[ It’s not as if they have anywhere to be, and though he does not wish to stay here longer than he has to, he knows that being careless will land them right back in this pit. Possibly worse off than they were before.

He nods the affirmative, stepping aside to allow Markus to go first. His eyes track the other as he ascends, watching for hand holds and places to brace his feet. Once Markus has enough of a head start that a wrong move won’t send him crashing down on Arthur, he begins to follow. It is a slow process, and both of them struggle thanks to the hell both of their bodies have been through, but with one final push, Markus crests the top of the slope.

Arthur, not too far behind, extends his hand for help the last bit of the way. ]

Edited 2018-08-06 20:21 (UTC)

[Slow and steady, bodies not responding at optimal capacity, but determination was the only real key either of them needed to make it to the top. Determination, a small dose of luck, and a bit of coordinated teamwork.

And finally, what tastes like the first rush of freedom, pulling themselves from a pit of hell. But Markus won't rest until he's grasped a hold of Arthur's hand, hefting him up with one final bought of strength. Allowing themselves to finally reach that plateau, and when they've made it, Markus remains slumped on his knees from the exertion. Rain pelts at the both of them, as relentlessly as before.]

All in one piece, Arthur?

[ Would that he made a more graceful exit, but as it is he doesn't crest the top so much as flop over it, laying in the mud, face turned up at the sky.

He casts a glance over at his companion. ]

As much as I can be, right now.

... We really made it.

[ It is a statement mostly of relief, but there's something like uncertainty there.

Now what? ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject